Harassment and Intimidation

Introduction Antiwar and Anti-Israel Divestment Radical Speakers Support for Violence Harassment and Intimidation Opposing Israel's Security Fence Acknowledging Bias and Preventing Intimidation

A few Muslim campus groups have also sought to intimidate those with different opinions, hoping to silence expressions of opposition to their views.

• On February 10, 2004, the MSA at the University of California, Berkeley, protested an appearance by Daniel Pipes, a columnist and director of the Middle East Forum. The lecture was organized by the Israel Action Committee and Berkeley Hillel. Members of the MSA and other groups demonstrated outside the lecture, some carrying signs that equated Zionism with Nazism. One protester held up a sign that read "Israel: Born of British colonialism. Created through Zionist terrorism. Supported by Western imperialism. Sustained by Israeli militarism." Openly anti-Semitic fliers handed out at the event claimed that "neoconservatives and the Jewish Lobby...planned the Iraq wars" and that "most of the US media...are Jewish owned." Some protesters also attempted to disrupt the lecture by booing and calling Pipes a "racist" and "Zionist."
  
  
• Confrontational tactics in response to pro-Israel speakers nearly got out of hand at New York's Barnard College in November 2003 at a conference organized by WE RISE, a feminist group. Phyllis Chesler, who had recently published a book about rising anti-Semitism, gave a lecture at the event but was heckled about her position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When Chesler was leaving the event, an attendee attempted to assault her, but organizers managed to stop the attack.